“Well, that’s unsettling. Come in. Before you attract any more attention.” Caledonia sat up, giving Pisces room to join her with their backs against the wall. While Tin and Nettle took the two chairs, Amina sat on the floor, letting Hime lean back against the strong wall of her chest.

“We saw you leave,” Nettle explained to Pisces. “But we already knew something was amiss.”

“Amiss?” Pisces asked, amused.

Nettle grinned. “I told you I could use it in a sentence.”

“She won’t quit.” Amina’s cheek rested against the crown of Hime’s head, but she was smiling as she sniped at the young girl.

“She talks enough as it is. I keep saying teaching the girl new words is a hell of an idea,” Tin added with a shake of her head, her pale brown spikes bobbing softly.

Nettle beamed, and the rest of the room pulled in closer around that smile. Seeing the five of them together still fit strangely. It wasn’t the team Caledonia had grown to expect, and it was impossible to look at Tin and Nettle and not long for Redtooth and Lace. Yet as the five girls jabbed at one another and laughed over bonds Caledonia had missed, a strange sensation came over her. She felt warm and safe and relaxed. She felt relieved.

She was responsible. Always responsible. But she wasn’t just responsible for them, she was responsible to them. Sitting here wrapped in their friendship, she realized that it was that simple thing that lightened her own burden. She could share it with them, and they would carry it with her.

“Tell us, Captain.” Amina’s voice was silky and warm.

This was how she’d failed them last time. She had kept her troubles to herself, tried to manage them alone, and in the end, she was wounded, and they’d been captured. Once again, she was hoarding her worries. But it was time to trust them to her sisters.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she began.

Holding tight to her courage, Caledonia told them everything: her reasons for going after Lir, all she knew of Donnally, the current plight facing the colonists, even her radio conversation with Lir. They listened. Each one alert and intent on her words. Amina scowled through much of it, her chin perched lightly atop Hime’s head. Hime, for her part, held a placid expression on her face. Tin’s expression matched whatever emotion was currently roiling inside her, making it difficult to watch her for very long; Nettle listened with the tip of her thumbnail clenched between her teeth while Pisces stayed at Caledonia’s side, head bowed slightly, fingers curled through her own and resting there without demanding attention.

By the time she finished, she felt both hollow and light, as if by giving them everything she’d been tossing around inside, she’d created room to think again.